Can you tell me how to cook red rice ? I got this from the chinese store and not sure how I coould use it ?

Thanks,
Tej

I had written to you long back for the recipe of Ragi Roti.anyway,with the thousands of comments that you get on your blog,I don;t think you will remember me.Well,I just love the way you present your recipes.This type of rice is also consumed in Orissa.People who eat it cannot digest normal polished rice.It is extremely nutritious.

By the way,Here in London,you can find this type of rice,although I never knew its name until I saw your post today.I hade bought this rice once, and found that it tastes very good.Now I think I will buy it oftener.

I have finally got the time now to write my own blog,here is the URL:

www.passion-for-food.blogspot.com

Please srite what you think of it.Thanks.

Thanks for posting on such a nutritious variety of Rice. I have heard about this but have not tried it. My husband and me have been wanting to switch to Brown Rice for health reasons. And I keep postponing making the switch… I just dont take easily to change…
But now I will for sure. By the time my next bag of Sona Masoori is over I will try to get a hold of this. Not sure if it is available in our Indian store.
The rice and rasam look so inviting. Nothing like comfort food
Cheers
Latha

As I said more on the rice.

One year, my mom planted paddy on our fields. It was mostly because it’s was requested that the people in Northern Sri Lanka cultivate food to become self-sufficient. My mom also wanted to show us how they used to farm the land. Not all our fields were farmed. I cannot say for sure, how many hectaires were used. But, for me it seemed quite a bit.

We learnt a lot during those months. To make the long story short. The field was prepared. Natural fertilizers were used. The kids had a nice time going around gathering fresh and old cow dung. I’ve written about it in my Tamil blog. [Link - ???????? ???????? ?????????,,, - http://mathy.kandasamy.net/musings/2006/10/01/539]. Anyways, had a nice time tasting the very young rice-milk. driving away the parrots trying to feast on the young paddy grains.

Once the paddy has matured it’s reaped. Then seperated and spread out in the sun and dried, and then stored in sacks.

Whenever you need, one sack is opened. A huge fire is built in the backyard. Special anda(vessels to cook paddy in). is prepared and filled half way with water. And the paddy is cooked or puzhunga vaippathu - hence the name puzhungal arisi). The paddy after being cooked for an hour or two - am not sure how long. Then the paddy is drained and dried under the sun.

Once dried, the paddy could be sent to the professionals with machines to seperate the husk from the rice. I have never accompanied my grand mother on these trips and I highly regret it now. She returns with three seperate bags. One holds the semi-polished rice. The other holds the husk. This would be burned in the back=yard and kari would be prepared. this mixed with some sea-salt would be used to brush teeth. We were told to brush out teeth with this mixture on the week-ends. It was very new to us when we moved home from Colombo. Our mouth would be all black and we have to use our fingers to brush. Only now i realise the environmentally wise ways of our ancesters.
The last bag would hold the thavidu(Sorry the name in english escapes me). Thavidu would be very colorfull in nice reddish pink. Thavidu would be mixed with the kanji and fed to cows, who lap it up. Sometimes, dried coconut[forgot the tamil/english words], left out after making coconut oil, would be mixed too.

Ok. I’m stopping here.

I know the exact person to approach reg. the history of this kind of rice. Hope he would be free to write something for us. I’m eagerly waiting for more information myself.

Thanks Indira.

-Mathy

Indira replies:
Oh Mathy, thank you for this trip along the memory lane. You have made me teary eyed. I also have similar childhood experiences in mycase at my grandparents home and the rice they grew was sona masuri. I remember brushing teeth with rice pottu. My grandparents would mix little bit of sugar and salt in this rice pottu to make it more palatable for us children. It tastes so good, I used to swallow a lot instead of brushing.:) Now with my grandfather passed away, children (my aunts and uncles) doing city jobs, the few acres in our family, they have given them to some other ritus(farmers) for a low rate “gutta” (others do the farming and pay the farm owner small yearly commission either in money form or rice bags.)
It’s getting tough to hold on to these memories, they seem so long ago, so faraway!
Many thanks for your interest and it would be my pleasure to publish information about this rice on Mahanandi. Thanks Mathy!

Rashmi: Nice to know that this rice is a regular preparation in Mangalorean Cooking.

Hi RP: I am also planning to prepare it atleast once a week. You steamcook the rice, glad to know that and thanks for sharing the method.